


Wibbley-Wobbley (Time Travel Fic Dump)

by madame_faust



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Kid Fic, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-09
Packaged: 2018-03-01 12:32:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2773142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_faust/pseuds/madame_faust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I have a time travel weakness and everyone can deal with that. First story - The Adventures (and Angst) of Our Favorite Siblings (No, Not Fíli and Kíli)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. If You Go Out in the Woods

Thorin and Dís took that night’s patrol around the perimeter of the camp, relieving Fíli and Kíli’s of their duty. The lads thought this was further chastisement, repercussions from the night they’d been teasing their burglar about Orcs, but truly it had nothing to do with them and everything to do with their uncle having a difficult time controlling his temper.

The wizard had been hinting, infrequently at first, then with growing pointedness, that they would do well to apply to the Elven Lord Elrond of Imladris for aid and advice before they climbed the Misty Mountains. Naturally, Thorin would not hear of it. The uneasy feelings that had existed between their races for untold centuries would be reason enough for wariness, but the betrayal of King Thranduil of the Woodland Realm in their time of greatest need turned Thorin’s heart to stone against all Elvenkind. Gandalf harumphed and accused Thorin of stubbornness. Thorin glowered and accused Gandalf of meddling in affairs that did not concern him

It went on and on until nightfall at which time Balin suggested that Dís accompany her brother on patrol while the horses were watered and the others prepared dinner. So off they were, walking the perimeter of the camp, hands on their blades, ears pricked for any sounds or sudden movements that seemed out of the ordinary. It was a quiet night, but the thick fog that rolled steadily over the meadows made for a murky patrol. One spot of woodland looked very much like another spot of woodland to dwarven eyes and for a moment they’d feared they were lost.

“We’re not,” Thorin insisted, stubborn as Gandalf accused him of being. “We can’t be, Dwalin wouldn’t let me hear the end of it - ah, see, we’re not too far afield, I can hear them.”

Indeed, the quiet gloom of the night was pierced by the sound of heavy footsteps, snapping twigs and the low, rumbling mumur of voices just beyond the line of trees.

“Awfully loud, aren’t they?” Dís commented to her brother, brow furrowing. They weren’t _that_ close to the camp, surely, not for all they’d walked. “You’d have thought Glóin would’ve told them to quiet down.”

“We’re not in any - Dís? Where’ve you gotten to?”

“I’m right - ” _here_ she started to say, but when she turned round, Dís only saw the ever-thickening fog lying low and wet about her. “Thorin?”

There was no answer and for a second she blindly panicked thinking that he’d been snatched by some silent, uncanny forest creature that they’d neither heard nor seen in their trek through the woods. But they’d been so _careful_ -

“Stay right where you are, if you know what’s good for you!”

A voice that was absolutely _not_ that of her brother sounded out in the darkness. Naturally, Dís didn’t do as commanded, she drew her sword and squinted into the fog, discerning the shapes of three bulky figures charging at her from the trees.

Dwarves, all of them, but not of the Company. Vagabonds, they looked like, their clothes were frayed and their hair and beards unornamented. She knew of no settlements in this part of the world and assumed they were wanderers or marauders.

 _It’s a pity,_ she reflected, drawing her sword to tussle with the swiftest of them who was fast approaching, _that we didn’t take Nori with us. These might be chums of his._

Then again, she mused, deflecting a clumsy thrust, Nori kept absolutely rotten company when she wasn’t about to make him mind.

The one who’d charged her was young and unpracticed, she noticed that right off, it was almost laughably easy to throw him off his balance and send him sprawling on the wet grass beneath him. It was only then that she got a good look at his face. He was a good-looking boy, even with his face contorted in pain, with the reddest, curliest hair and beard she’d ever seen. Well, next to Hervor’s…

Something about the shape of the nose and mouth, the sprinkling of freckles on pale skin struck home with her, but Dís didn’t have time to reflect on the familiarity for the lads companions were coming quickly upon his heels.

She raised her sword and raised her eyes, stepping away from the boy’s supine form - even if he _had_ attacked her, she wasn’t about to stab the child through the chest like some common cutthroat - but what she saw next made her stop dead in her tracks.

There before her were two of the largest dwarves she had ever seen. One was older, had to be middle aged, with a white beard cut close to his chin, scalp bare but for the rudimentary scratches of tattoos begun upon his bronze flesh. His face was criss-crossed with scars, but his face was achingly familiar, even if there were a pair of dark blue eyes where she ordinarily saw brown.

The old dwarf made her pause, but the sight of the younger at his side made her lower her arms and nearly had her crashing to her knees with shock. Every bit as tall and just about as broad through the shoulders as he should be, but almost entirely unscarred. The thrice-broken nose that she had kissed a hundred thousand times was straight and his head was crowned with long, wild dark brown locks.

 _I must be dreaming,_ was Dís’s first thought. The fog was lifting and Dwalin had outpaced his father, bearing down on her with a raised axe and an expression that anyone else would have found fierce, possibly terrifying. If she was anyone else, she’d have raised her sword and charged him before he got close enough to take her head off with those long arms and sharp blade of his.

 _Oh, I can’t,_ was her second thought. Because though Dís was just as alarmed and panicked as she had been a moment ago, there was a small part of her - the part that wasn’t keeling over in shock and wondering where her brother was - that could not help finding that familiar snarl on that impossibly young face absolutely adorable.

“Alright,” she said, tossing her sword on the ground between them. “You’ve got me. I don’t want a fight.”

Dís raised her hands, palms up and Dwalin skidded to a stop a few feet away, losing all his warrior bluster and shooting an uncertain look over his shoulder at his father.

Fundin stopped even before his son, staring at Dís with a pop-eyed expression of utter disbelief. The third of their party, who Dís belatedly remembered was Hervor’s elder brother Heidrek, picked himself up off the ground and retrieved his sword from the place she’d knocked it from his hands.

“Take her axe,” Fundin barked, recovered from whatever it was that had him so stunned a moment ago. Dís stood still as Heidrek removed Dancer from where it was strapped to her back, she was even solicitous enough to roll her shoulders to stoop a bit so he could unclasp the straps that held it on. “And search her - ”

“That’s alright!” Dís exclaimed, uncomfortable with the idea of seventy-year-old dwarflings sticking their hands down the neck of her tunic. She lowered her hands to remove the knives from her belt, but Fundin raised his own sword and she froze at one.

“Go on, lad,” he nodded at Dwalin.

To his credit, Dwalin did as he was told, approaching her with the wariness due an unknown assailant, but he managed not to look nervous about it. Two high spots of colour appeared in his cheeks when he drew out a tiny throwing knife that she’d had tucked away beneath the band of her underthings, but the rest were all hidden in respectable areas.

Heidrek and Dwalin were given charge of the weapons while Fundin tied her hands behind her back with a length of leather cord. The threat was in the blade he pointed at the back of her neck moreso than in the restraints, she could have snapped the cords easily with a twitch of her wrists, but she was careful to hold her hands still as stone, mind reeling all the while.

She couldn’t help herself from staring at Dwalin, the most familiar to her of all of them and it was his presence that kept her from going out of her mind trying to fathom it all. He was so _skinny!_ And such a dwarfling, the hair on his face still retained a bit of softness to it that would vanish as age coarsened it - to say _nothing_ of the hair on his head, he’d not had so much to boast since before they settled in the Ered Luin.

Dwalin’s eyes kept shifting to her as well, though he dropped them just as often and more than once wiped presumably sweaty palms on the fabric of his trousers. Fundin’s looks were less sly, without a word he jerked her head up once at the chin, staring at her with a relentless searching expression in his face. He studied the line of her nose, the shape of her eyes, and his huge fingers tightened on her chin beneath her beard just once before he dropped his hand.

“What are you doing prowling around our camp?” he asked.

“I wasn’t prowling,” Dís replied, trying to keep the bite out of her voice. “I was having a walk.”

“A walk,” Fundin repeated skeptically. “In the wild. By yourself.”

“I wasn’t by myself, I was…” Dís trailed off, worrying her lip. She didn’t know where Thorin was, hadn’t heard him and these three certainly hadn’t spied him. “I wasn’t by myself.”

“You two go on,” Fundin addressed Heidrek and Dwalin. “Back to camp. Tell Thrór there are more about.” To Dís he asked, “How many?”

There was no point in lying, so she didn’t.

“One more. My brother,” she said, _hoping_ they would find him and prove that she hadn’t gone completely mad.

“What’re you called?”

Dís actually laughed, a touch hysterically, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Fundin wasn’t in the mood to argue, evidently. “Doesn’t much matter,” he said, giving a push to her and marching orders to the lads.

“We could go off looking for him our - ” Heidrek started, but Fundin cut him off at once.

“No.”

“But Da - ” Dwalin began and was effectively silenced with a glare.

“No. To Thrór I said, quickly. _You,”_ he said to Heidrek and Dís saw the boy shrink back, “are damned lucky she’s not a murderer, she could have taken your head off back there.”

“Aye, sir, sorry sir,” Heidrek nodded, then flickered his eyes uncertainly to Dís. “Er. Thanks, ma’am?”

“Off!” Fundin bellowed and the two lads took to their heels back to the camp, neither sparing a glance behind. The guard and his prisoner followed at a steady, but slower pace, Fundin didn’t speak again, but he didn’t take his eyes off her either. Dís kept her ears strained for some sound of Thorin, but as they drew closer to the camp, the sound of fires being lit and hundreds of voices speaking and shouting at one another filled her ears.

The sound of the place, the smell, the look of it through the trees - this was what she remembered of her childhood, far more than the golden halls they were set to reclaim. At least, she noted ruefully, she was not dead. There was no splendor in this.

“Fundin!” An auburn-haired dwarf who looked familiar, though Dís couldn’t place the name, came charging toward them. Shorter than Fundin by a good head, he nevertheless had the scarred, strapping build of a guardsman. “You’ve got to come - oh. You’ve got one of your own.”

“She said there was another - her brother,” Fundin said, but the other guardsman was already nodding.

“Aye, I see that, the very image of - but you’ve got to _see_ the other one, I mean...just come.”

Dís kept her mouth shut, though her shoulders dropped in relief. She might have been bound and taken prisoner by her own people - her own people who were a century _dead_ , but at least they’d found Thorin. She was positive he hadn’t any idea where they were or how this had happened than she did, but at least they’d be together.

Thorin had been forced to sit beneath a tree at swordpoint a sword wielded by - no. No, it wasn’t Balin. That could _not_ be Balin, but it was. His hair had begun to grey already and he was a good deal more spare through the middle, but she recognized his handsome face at once as she was pushed down to sit alongside her brother.

Dís tripped over a tree root and stumbled, unable to move her arms to steady herself, so she knocked into Thorin as she fell down. Unperturbed she grinned up at him, so relieved to see him she was nearly giddy.

“Well, that’s a relief anyhow,” she said, shifting to sit upright. “Aren’t you pleased to see me?”

 

“More than I can say,” Thorin muttered, but he never took his eyes off Balin and his face was still and impassive. “Unless you’re another mirage conjured by the mist and I’ve well and truly gone mad.”

“If you’re mad, I’m mad,” Dís whispered back. “Which, granted, isn’t impossible.”

The guard was not usually so apt to let prisoners exchange words under their breath, but Fundin’s companion was whispering to him just as urgently as Thorin and Dís were to each other.

“...Thrór! The very image, eh??” the auburn haired one, called Loni, hissed, “And the _’dam!_ Why, she could be your sis - ”

“I know, I know,” Fundin shushed him. “I’ve sent the lads for Thrór. He’ll see to it.”

The lads returned before Thrór did, running flat out, Dwalin’s long legs carrying him over the earth as swiftly as Heidrek’s quicker strides. Dwalin actually got slightly ahead of him, which did the other boy no favors when he stopped short and Heidrek plowed into his back, falling on the ground for the second time that night.

“S’hands!” Dwalin exclaimed and Fundin turned to scold him, but the reprimand died on his tongue when Dwalin, who had eyes only for the prisoner Balin held at swordpoint said, _“Thorin?”_

* * *

 

Fíli and Kíli might have been snubbed, but it took more than the brush-off by their mother and uncle to keep them down. So when Bilbo observed that they’d been gone a long while, the two scrambled to their feet, shouting that they’d find them quick as blinking and running into the line of trees with a hastily lighted lantern before anyone could stop them.

“They went off this way, didn’t they?” Kíli asked, squinting into the darkness.

“Reckon so,” Fíli replied with more confidence than he felt. “Don’t shout for ‘em!”

Kíli let out the huge breath he’d taken, cheeks flaming warm in the darkness. “I wasn’t going to,” he lied, remembering that patrols were meant to be careful and quiet. No wonder he and his brother had been taken off the job, Fíli wouldn’t know ‘quiet’ if it bit him on the nose. As for him...well, he couldn’t help if his voice had been naturally fashioned for volume.

“But they _did_ go off this way?” Kíli asked again. “You’re sure?”

Fíli hesitated this time. His eyes weren’t as sharp as his brother’s and he brought the lantern close to his face to see. “Er…hang on! Hear that?”

Kíli pricked his ears and listened. It wasn’t their mother or uncle he heard, but he did hear something. Jerking his head to the left, he and Fíli crept over dried pine needles as quietly as they were able, until the sound resolved itself into words.

“Are you finished yet?”

“Just about - you didn’t _have_ to come, it’s not easy trying to pee when someone’s _staring.”_

“I am certainly not staring, I’ve got my back turned, just as you instructed, lassie. Don’t know when it was you got so bashful.”

“Hervor says a body’s got to have _some_ privacy. Especially from elder brothers.”

“Hmm. Sounds like Hervor’s speaking for herself.”

The fog was rolling in, thick and fast. The brothers stuck close together, shoulder to shoulder, straining to follow the voices to their source. There were two, that was easy to tell. One had the fluctuating cadence of a youth, not quite grown into its depth and the other was that of a child, lad or lassie it was impossible to say.

When the mist passed so thickly before their eyes that even the light of their lantern dimmed, Fíli and Kíli faltered, but it was clearing as quick as it had come on. The forest was as dark and deserted as had been when they walked into it, but Kíli caught a bit of movement out of the corner of his eye and turned toward it on instinct, a hand going to his sword since he’d left his bow by the fire.

Fíli turned and the lantern-light shined down on a little dwarfling, staring at them when huge eyes. Her hands were balled in the fabric of a tunic that was far too big for her; her bony collarbones cast deep shadows over her shoulders in the light.

She was a sorry-looking little thing. Skinny enough to be a Mannish child, but she had a bit of curling black hair on her cheeks that marked her out as a dwarf sure enough. Her blue eyes were enormous in her face and her hair was a mess, falling loosely around her shoulders without a single clasp or ribbon to tie it back. Her trousers had holes in the knees and her boots were practically worn through. She wasn’t wearing a coat.

The brothers exchanged a confused glance. They knew of no settlement of dwarrowkind nearby - if there was, they’d surely have tried to find a place to stay rather than bedding down in the open. And even wanderers had more care for their children than to let one wander around in the nighttime by herself.

Fíli approached her slowly, a small smile on his face. “‘Evening, little one. Where’d you come from?”

She pointed to some place to her left, then lowered her arm, worrying the hem of her tunic in her hands. “Over...I don’t know. I got lost, in the fog.”

“I can see that,” Fíli replied, looking at the mist around him. It was receding, but still obscured their surroundings. “Are you here all alone?”

 

“Oh, no,” the child shook her head. “‘Course not. I don’t go anywhere alone. My brother was...he was right nearby.”

It might have been a trap, a ploy. Shove the child out into the wilderness while others lurked behind trees, ready to ambush would-be helpers, but something about the girl struck Fíli strangely. He’d never seen her before - of course he hadn’t, he’d never been this far East in his life - but he felt she was somehow familiar. Could be she reminded him of Kíli, he’d been so skinny when he was small that he practically disappeared when he turned sideways.

Kíli didn’t stop for a second to think that there might be something dangerous about the lass, he walked right past Fíli and knelt down in front of her, favoring her with a huge smile. “What’re you and your brother doing out here? In the middle of nowhere, not one respectable cave to be seen?”

The girl shrugged. “We’re on our way someplace else. Like always - what are _you_ doing out here?”

Kíli winked. “As it happens, we’re on our way to someplace else. And that’s _my_ brother. Fíli. I’m Kíli. What’re you called?”

“I’m - ” she stopped. Bit her lip. Stepped back. The light of Fíli’s lantern glinted off the steel at Kíli’s side and the girl’s eyes flickered warily between the two of them. “I’m not supposed to talk to dwarves I don’t know. To _anyone_ I don’t know.”

“We’re - that’s good advice,” Kíli acknowledged, glancing over his shoulder at his brother, who nodded. “But we’re alright. We just want to get you back to your brother, don’t we, Fíli?”

“Aye,” he nodded. “It’s just you and him?”

“Oh, no!” the lass exclaimed. “No, I’ve got two brothers! And my amad and adad. And my udad - and uncles and cousins, I’ve got dozens of them! They’ll come looking for me, I’ll just stay here and you...you can go on.”

“We can’t just leave you alone out here,” Kíli said uncertainly, looking at his brother again for guidance.

Fíli had none to give. There was something odd about this girl, something that told him he knew her, but he couldn’t imagine where from. She couldn’t be any older than forty, but there was something about her nose, the shape of her eyes that seemed _so_ familiar. Even the way she captured her lower lip with her teeth seemed like something he’d seen before.

“If you can’t tell us your name, what’s your brother’s name?” Kíli asked when he realized his brother wasn’t going to do anything more helpful than act as a lampstand.

“I don’t think I should - Thorin!”

Abruptly, Fíli was seized around the shoulders and something cold, hard and sharp pressed into the tender flesh of his throat. Fíli dropped the lantern he’d been holding. The light flared once, then guttered into darkness.

“Get away from her,” a voice growled, not at him, but at Kíli. “I won’t ask twice.”

Kíli stood up, mouth falling open. The fingers of his left hand twitched, but he didn’t go for his sword. Fíli was too focused on trying to reason out how he could break the hold the lad had around him to notice that his brother’s mouth wasn’t open in horror, but in shock. Inwardly, he cursed himself - he should have _expected_ an ambush, but he was too focused on the strange child that he hadn’t realized he was being attacked. Hadn’t even registered what it was she’d called her brother.

Belatedly, noticing the knife at his brother’s throat, Kíli stepped away from the little girl, hands up, palms out. His mouth was still open as if he was a codfish on a monger’s cart. The child ran past him, unbound hair streaming behind her. Instantly the pressure around Fíli’s neck eased as the brother opened his arms to her. Fíli stumbled away, turning around to look at him, hands going to his own knives.

The dwarf seemed to be barely of age, his beard was gathered in a simple plait in his chin, but he was tall, much taller than either Fíli or his brother. Strong too, he swung the girl up on his hip with one hand, holding his knife away from her, the wickedly sharp tip pointed toward Fíli menacingly.

“Stay where you are,” he said. “One shout from me and you’ll have fifty warriors at your throats - the King’s Guard of Erebor.”

“What?” Fíli asked, ignoring Kíli’s hand closing around his wrist, the insistent pressure from grasping fingers. All that remained of Erebor’s King’s Guard were on this Quest or retired in the Ered Luin. Balin and Dwalin. Gimli’s grandfather Vigg.

“Fíli…”

“They didn’t hurt me,” the girl whispered, but she was close enough that Fíli heard her. “They just talked. They wanted to go looking for you.”

“I’ll just bet they did,” her brother glared. “Don’t _move!”_

“You threaten me with a knife and you expect me to let you walk away?” Fíli asked incredulously. He tried to shake Kíli off, but his brother held fast.

“Fíli!”

“What?” he barked. “Get _off - ”_

“Fíli!” Kíli exclaimed again. _“Thorin!”_

“What about...him?” Kíli’s sharp eyes caught what, until now, Fíli missed entirely. The long, thin nose. The furious blue eyes. The trace of their uncle’s steady, deep voice issuing from this youngling’s throat. And the girl he held to him so tightly, the girl he was willing to shed blood for…

“No,” Fíli breathed, looking at his brother in a blind panic. “No! That’s not...that’s not possible.”

“‘Course not, but…” Kíli made a half-aborted gesture to them, lowering his hand when Thorin raised his knife. “There they are - you don’t know us?”

“No,” Thorin said flatly. His eyes lingered on Kíli for a half a beat longer than he looked at Fíli, but in the end he shook his head. “You’re not of Erebor. That’s all I need to know.”

“Funny you mention that - ” Kíli started, but Fíli elbowed him in the ribs to shut him up.

“Gandalf,” Fíli said, not taking his eyes off his mother and uncle. “We need Gandalf.”

At the invocation of the wizard’s name, the hand holding the knife lowered. Thorin’s brow furrowed and, seeing the chance, Kíli pounced, knocking Thorin and Dís to the ground. The tussle was brief - Thorin was more interested in keeping his sister unharmed than he was in keeping a hold of his weapon and Kíli wrestled it away from him, tucking the blade in his belt.

Fíli ran over, grabbing his brother by the back of his head and pulled him to his feet. “What were you _thinking?”_

“Couldn’t have him pointing a knife at us all the while, could we?” Kíli asked, as if it was Fíli who’d just done something stupid. “What? They’re alright.”

They didn’t _look_ alright. Dís had buried her face in Thorin’s shoulder and he had both arms wrapped around her and scrambled back away from them, fear and fury warring for dominance on his face.

“You’re an idiot,” Fíli said flatly, running a hand through his hair since he couldn’t think of anything else to do. They needed Gandalf, they needed...they needed…

“No help at all if the four of you are lost,” a voice as deep and dark as a thundercloud muttered into the night. “If you’ve broken that lantern - ”

Dwalin came crashing through the underbrush, cursing colorfully when his boots snagged on some treeroot or other. By sheer chance, he stumbled on the scene and nearly stepped on Thorin, still sprawled on the forest floor with his sister in his arms.

For a long minute, no one moved. Thorin and Dwalin stared into one another’s eyes silently while Fíli and Kíli looked between the two of them, making no motion toward them, nor did they attempt to explain what had happened - how could they explain it?

In the end, it came down to Dís. Confused by the silence, she cautiously raised her head and looked up, and up, and _up_ at Dwalin. Her mouth dropped open just as Kíli’s had done earlier, but she closed it quickly. Then - so quickly and quietly that no one would have heard her if it hadn’t been silent - she giggled.


	2. Understanding!Thror, Oblivious!Frerin, Troublemaker!Nori

Word had evidently spread through the camp that the eldest prince and little princess were missing. They had gone into the forest after supper and it was past time for them to have returned. Their mother was frantic. Their father was furious. And their grandfather…well, he had been called away from the search entirely and in doing so seemed to have found them.

Thrór seemed less shocked than the others, but perhaps it was simply that he’d suffered so much in his life that he was incapable of being surprised any longer. He approached them without hesitation, crouching down before Thorin.

It was awful to see him again. It was awful to see any of them again, hale and whole where Thorin had last seen them bloody and rent, then stripped of all their arms and armor, burnt to a cinder. Thorin swallowed hard; he could still smell the smoke and taste the ashes.

The dwarf who was before him looked as well as Thorin had seen him. His beard was cut close, but his long grey hair hung down his back, braided and tied away from his face. He must have been working, he wore it loose otherwise. Thorin had forgotten how his grandfather wore his hair, how his mother used to cluck her tongue and declare that Thrór taught her son bad habits. She usually made such statements when she was savagely running a comb through Thorin’s hair, tugging hard at snarls. Thorin tried to defend his grandfather, said his hair couldn’t hold loose working braids without coming all undone. She said that was Thrór’s fault as well for it was  _his_  hair Thorin had inherited.

He was told he took after his grandfather in many ways. Some more pitiable than the possession of fine hair.

Thorin stiffened and tried to draw back, but his hands were bound and he was pressed against the tree as it was. There was nowhere to go. He <i>might</i> be able to knock Dís out of the way if swords were drawn on them. Surely that would be the order given, surely no one would take the word of Dwalin - so  _young_  - that they the prince and princess.

“What’s happened here, lad?” Thrór asked, kindly.  _Kindly._

Maybe he was as mad as they always said.

“Couldn’t say,” Thorin replied softly, eyes focusing on some point over the old dwarf’s shoulders. “But we were traveling with a wizard.”

Beside him, Dís who had been sitting so still, so wary, snorted at his words. It was a short sound of mirth that she quashed, but Thrór looked at her and there was such a tender expression in his face that Thorin’s urge to flee lessened.

“Sorry,” Dís said, in a stronger voice than Thorin’s. “Only I’m sure this is Gandalf’s fault.”

Thrór laughed and nodded, “Aye, lass. I’m sure. Let’s hope your wizard has this well in hand.”

Thorin bristled slightly, but bit his tongue against speaking ill of the wizard aloud. He might be able to  _hear_  them, if he could conjure such ghosts from the mists.

Only they hardly seemed ghostly. Heidrek was picking his teeth (discreetly, when Fundin’s back was turned). Balin had drawn away from them all and had his eyes on Thorin and Dís, brow furrowed into lines that time would eventually entrench deeply. All the while, he had a restraining hand on Dwalin’s arm, to keep him from getting too close to them.

“What do we do?” Fundin asked Thrór once his king was standing again. His voice carried, despite his obvious effort to keep his tone low.

“I don’t know there’s much we can do,” Thrór shook his head. “Wizards…”

“You believe them?” Balin was unable to hold his tongue another moment. He dropped Dwalin’s arm and strode over to Thrór and his father, disbelieve choking his tone. “You actually  _believe - ?”_

“Aye,” Thrór nodded simply. He looked once more at Thorin, his expression and eyes darkening slightly. But when he turned back to Balin his voice was firm. “I do. Release them. Get them something to eat. I’ll speak to Thráin.”

“Something to  _eat?”_  Balin repeated. He looked up at his father, but Fundin waved him away.

“He’s king,” Fundin said, as if that was the end of the matter.

“He’s - Adad, there were days…when Amad had to - ” Balin started, venomously, but Fundin looked up at him and when he spoke his voice was harsh.

 _“Enough,_  Balin.”

It was a tone both of them recognized - being pushed to the brink of their patience by a youngling was not unfamiliar to Dís or Thorin - but to hear such tightly-leashed anger turned on  _Balin_  was a shock to both of them.

Loni stepped forward then, walking between Fundin and Balin to crouch down in front of Dís and Thorin, rubbing his hands together briskly.

“Well!” he said, a touch too loudly. “Let’s get those ties off - don’t snap them, if you please, we need those.”

“Of course,” Dís said, sitting up obligingly, shifting up onto her knees so Loni could make quick work of the leather bands around her wrists. She looked at Thorin, as if for guidance, but he had none to give.

He had no knowledge of what had happened, only suspicions. If he and Dís were…somehow, some way, in the past and they…as they <i>were</i> wandered the wilds - well, there would be no one to argue against seeking the aid of the Elves. It seemed to Thorin a damned dangerous and underhanded way to get what he wanted. But he had never doubted that the wizard was dangerous.

Hands ripped at his own bonds and Thorin heard the leather snapping and familiar quiet swearing.

He looked over his shoulder and locked his gaze with a pair of wide, brown eyes.

“Sorry,” Dwalin said, not to him, but to Loni.

“No matter, lad,” he said, his voice carefully careless. “If anyone asks, we’ll say it was me.”

Dwalin nodded, looking at Thorin again. “Alright?” he asked.

Thorin’s heart stuttered a little. Of all the things to ask. All he could do was nod.

Dwalin never needed him to say much. “Why were you traveling with a wizard? Where were you going?”

“Dwalin!”

It wasn’t Fundin’s voice that rang out in the darkness, but Balin’s. He gestured for his brother to come away and, after a moment’s hesitation, Dwalin did as he was bid. Naturally; as a dwarf who had yet to reach his majority, he had to.

Loni stood when Dís and Thorin did. He was shorter than both of them and made an abortive gesture, meaning to tug at a beard that was no longer as long as once it had been. Thorin remembered Loni well, he was one of the kindest of the King’s Guard, helping them up when they fell, brushing them off with assurances that they hadn’t done as badly as they might have done and better luck next time. His daughters had gone to the Iron Hills, he thought Balin had been in contact with the eldest of them, but he did not remember when last he’d mentioned her.

“A wizard, eh?” he asked, then shook his head. “Where  _were_  you off to?”

“Somewhere we’d need a wizard’s aid to get to,” Thorin replied tightly.

Loni smiled briefly, “Fair enough…by the Maker, it’s like seeing the King and Queen of Erebor done over again.”

When he was gone back to the camp, Dís favored Thorin with a questioning look. “What’s he mean by that?”

“You look like Umad,” Thorin said shortly. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you?”

“No,” Dís said flatly. “No one talks about her. No one talks about anyone - but nevermind. What  _happened?”_

“The wizard wants to see the Elvenlord,” Thorin replied. He folded his arms and hunched his shoulders. “With a pair of frightened children in our place, who’s to say him nay?”

“That’s  _low,”_  Dís spat, but she did not disagree. “It’s cruel. Even for him.”

Thorin passed a hand over his face, muttering an oath. “I know you don’t trust him, but I had to - ”

“I know you did, I don’t blame you,” she replied all too quickly for Thorin to believe her. “How could you have known what he’d do? He offered you his help! We want to reclaim the Mount- ”

Something was crashing through the woodland, bringing with it shouts, voices raised in alarm, but Dís and Thorin both made out a skinny little figure crashing toward them. Thorin took an involuntary step back and Dís grasped his arm as they both realized who it was.

Not as tall as he would be, Frerin’s beard was still growing down the side of his face in thin dark patches, but his bony hands were overlarge for his thin wrists and he tripped over his feet as he stumbled into the clearing.

Once he was there, Frerin seemed to forget why he’d come. His chest was heaving and he doubled over with his hands on his knees, but he lifted his head, eyes darting from Dís to Thorin and back again rapidly.

“That’s…” he said, struggling to catch his breath. “That’s…a very nice coat you’re wearing, brother.”

* * *

 

“You can put me down,” Dís whispered in Thorin’s ear. They were standing in the shadow of a great big tree while the quiet yellow-haired dwarf - Fíli - hovered anxiously next to them.

 He seemed awfully nervous for someone whose only job was to keep them company. That’s what Dwalin told him to do, anyway, ‘Stay with them,’ he said while he went to go talk to, ‘that ———- wizard.’ (The word he’d used to describe the wizard was one Dís had heard many times, but was not allowed to say.)

“No,” Thorin said, holding her more tightly. “I can’t.”

 _“Can,”_  she countered, but her brother ignored her. Dís frowned, but didn’t drop her arms from where they were draped around his neck, she was still the teensiest bit frightened, though she didn’t want to say so.

When had Dwalin gotten so  _old?_  There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that the big  _bald_  dwarf was Dwalin, of course. His nose was crooked and his hair was all gone (she dearly wanted to ask what happened to it, but thought she’d better not; Ama said inquiring after physical deficiencies not caused by warfare was rude), but he had the same eyes as always and she’d only ever met two dwarves in her life who were as big as him. That was Umad and Mister Fundin and he wasn’t either of them.

But Dwalin hadn’t told them a thing about getting old all of a sudden, he looked down at them as if they were the odd ones and said they had to go back to the camp straight away. Dís was just bursting with questions - if Dwalin was old, then was everyone else old as well? Dís did not think it was possible for Udad to be any older than he was, but she supposed he must be, perhaps he’d gotten as old as Durin the Deathless and wouldn’t that be something?

Oooh, but that would mean  _Frerin_  was old too and so would be even older than her than he already was and therefore would be even more insufferable. Sometimes he ordered her about, like he was Adad and when she informed him that he  _wasn’t_  he’d pat her on the head and smile and make his voice like a song and say, ‘But I’m older than  _yo-ou!”_  And she’d say that twelve years wasn’t so much, but if he was as old as Dwalin, he’d have a lot more than twelve years on her and then she wouldn’t have an argument at all. That would be awful.

She was startled from her thoughts by loud cursing (Dwalin again, mostly, but it sounded like a friend or two had joined in) and the sound of something being thrown and hitting something else, then other voices joined in, sounding like they were trying to soothe things. Dís strained to hear, but couldn’t pick out her mother’s voice, or Missus Maeva’s among them.

“What’s Dwalin gone and done?” she asked Mister Fíli (she wasn’t sure he was old enough to be a Mister, but she was making a special effort to be polite). “Is he shouting at your wizard?”

“Er…I expect so,” Fíli said, scratching the back of his head. He was twitchy. Like a baby bird, though he looked nearly grown and had so many knives about him that nothing ought to make him nervous at all - then again, maybe that was why he had so many knives to begin with. Thorin was one of the bravest dwarves she knew and he only had one. “He’s not… _our_ wizard. Else I’m sure this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Is Dwalin under a curse?” she asked, wide-eyed. “Is that what happened? Did he make a bet with a wizard that went sour and he had his hair stolen?”

“Dís!” Thorin pinched her leg and she yelped.

“I was just  _asking!”_

“Well!” A strange voice from high above their heads floated down, odd sounding, like the rasp of old paper being crumpled. “Well, well. My, my. Isn’t this interesting?”

That  _had_  to be the wizard. In the first place, he looked exactly as a wizard ought to, like a tall, thin old Man with long hair and a wispy beard. He was wearing a pointed hat, though the sun had gone down and he carried a staff. Dís eyed it cautiously; she didn’t want her hair stolen.

“He can’t change them back,” a peevish voice said decisively. Dís cocked her head in confusion and not a little wariness. The dwarf who spoke looked and sounded like Mister Hornbori, but it couldn’t be; he’d been killed years ago when the camp was attacked by Orcs. Missus Irpa had been on her own with Dori and Nori since then - oh.  _Oh._

Could the wizard bring dead people back to life? Was that why Dwalin bargained his hair away? Was he going to bring everyone back who was dead? That would be grand!

“I cannot,” the wizard shook his head. “Because they have not been  _changed._  My, my.”

“So you’ve said.”

Dís recognized Balin as quickly as she’d recognized Dwalin, he looked almost the same, only his hair was all white like Mister Fundin’s. Dís waved at him, but though he glanced at her, he didn’t smile or acknowledge her in any way. She bit her lip and looked down at Thorin who seemed just as grave. Maybe her guesses about what the wizard had done. Now that she reflected on it, it was a stupid thing to think. If they could bring everyone back, they’d have done it ages ago.

The wizard then started speaking very fast and Dís only caught every third word. Thorin seemed to understand rather more and it made him angry. He squeezed her so tightly that her ribs hurt, but she didn’t ask him to put her down again. They weren’t near her people’s camp, they weren’t where they were meant to be at all. These were their kinsmen, they were older, but it wasn’t they who were wrong, it was Dís and Thorin. Apparently they were supposed to be all grown up here, but they…weren’t.

“We will make for the Hidden Valley,” Gandalf said and no one argued with him. “In the meantime…rest, I think. And something to eat for the children.”

The wizard turned his back and strode away, just as Dwalin raised a fist, whether to stop him or strike him they never found out, for Balin grabbed his arm and forced him back. Silently, Balin shook his head, though the glance he leveled at the wizard was full of venom.

The dwarf who looked like Hornbori threw his hands up and huffed, “Useless. Utterly useless.”

“Dunno,” a tall, thin, red-haired dwarf peeled out of the shadows, startling the fellow who’d spoken. “Seems he got just what he wanted. I’m impressed.”

“You shouldn’t be,” the strange dwarf snapped. “You ought to be on your guard.”

“Always,” the fellow with the red hair smiled. Then he jogged up to Dís and grinned in a familiar manner. “What d’you say, namad, hungry?”

“I’m not your sister,” Dís said, tugging Thorin’s shirt, but he was already swinging round to shield her from view.

“Are you not?” he winked. “Could’ve fooled me, all these years - ”

“Leave her alone,” Thorin ordered.

The lean dwarf seemed to have no intention of doing so,but Dwalin seized him by the back of the shirt and he stumbled off a few feet. “Clear off, Nori!”

Dís lost all her wariness instantly and whipped her head round, trying to get a better look.

“Nori?” she squeaked. No! Not Nori! Not her stupid little tag-along who got into everything he oughtn’t get into who Hervor got pennies for minding, though Dís was the one who always (almost always) got him out of trouble. Not  _Nori_.

He grinned again and bowed ridiculously. “At your service! Turned out alright, eh?”

Dís wrinkled her nose. “You’ve got stupid hair.”

Nori looked aghast and the dwarf she didn’t recognize snorted, “At least the child has taste.”

Recovering quickly, Nori sneaked around Thorin like a flash and pulled Dís’s messy curls, “Better than yours, you little ragamuffin. At least I’ve got a few fine braids, you look as if you’ve been playing in the coal bi - ”

Thorin shoved him as hard as he could. He was a bit wider in the shoulders than Nori, though not by much, but his push was enough to land Nori on his bum. “I told you to leave her alone.”

“She insulted me!” Nori protested from the ground. “It’s a wonder she wound up with any manners at all, with such an example! As you’re a prince at the moment and not a king, I’ve a few things I’ve been meaning to get off my chest and this seems just the time - ”

“It is not the time, it is absolutely  _not_  the time.” The silver-haired dwarf stepped and and hauled Nori to his feet, dragging him back to the camp with his head tucked under his arm. “I’ll gag him if I must,  _really_  Nori!”

“Oh, don’t act as if you’re doing the world a favor!” Nori griped, the words coming out only a little choked. “You’ll take any old excuse you can find to shut me up - don’t tell me  _you’re_  not squirming in your boots over the state of them! Mark me! Everyone! He’ll be sneaking into her bedroll tonight to sew up her trousers. Five silvers says he will! No takers? How about three?”

“Shut UP, Nori!”

Thorin waited until they’d quite gone before he spoke. “That was Dori, then?”

“Aye,” Balin sighed, but he didn’t seem to be sighing about Dori or even Nori for that matter. He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes, shutting them all out for the moment.

All was silence. Then Thorin spoke up again, adjusting his hold on Dís since she was starting to slip. “This Hidden Valley…”

“Rivendell,” Dwalin spat. “Nori got one thing right, that wizard does as he pleases and gets what he wants.”

“Dwalin - ” Balin lowered his hand, but didn’t open his eyes.

“No, I won’t stand for it,” he growled viciously. “He’s here to help  _us_ , not the other way round. We’re not his fucking playthings!”

“Dwalin!” Balin’s voice was sharp as a whip. “I think you’ll find that, if he wanted it to be so, we  _would_  be just that. Keep your wits about you and make your complaints where he cannot hear them.”

Balin turned to Dís and Thorin, still and silent. This time he managed a sort of smile for them, gesturing to the camp. “Come, eat. It will be a long journey yet.”

“Where are you going?” Thorin asked. “What are you all doing out here, in the wilderness? We’re not still…we’ve settled, haven’t we? Somewhere. Udad found a place at last, didn’t he?”

“You - ” Fíli started, but Balin cleared his throat and he stopped. Swallowing, he said, “You settled in the Blue Mountains. We’re coming from the Blue Mountains.”

“But where are you  _going?”_  Thorin asked, a bite of frustration coloring his voice.

“Don’t worry about that just now,” Balin said. He’d come up to Thorin’s side and lay a reassuring hand on his arm. His eyes gleamed in the moonlight, it was hard to read his expression. “You can put the lass down. No harm will come to her, I promise.”

Thorin hesitated. He looked nervous still, felt tense as stone beneath Dís’s hands, but a promise from Balin was a promise that would be kept. He loosened his hold on his sister and she slid to the ground to stand beside him; not a moment later, he took hold of her hand and she let him without a word.

Dís’s questions had all flown out of her head. Everyone seemed so cross, she hated it when there was fighting - there was <i>always</i> fighting, somewhere.

A shout was their only warning before Kíli ran at them at full speed, “What’s keeping you? Come round the fire, Bombur’s got supper on and all. Ma…ister. Mister… _Balin,_  aren’t you all coming?”

“We’re coming,” Dwalin said shortly. “Go on ahead, lads. We’ll catch up.”

Fíli and Kíli exchanged a look, but did as they were told and Balin followed behind, after throwing a significant glance up at Dwalin.

Dwalin frowned deeply and put a hand on Thorin’s shoulder to lead him forward. “No sense staying in the forest all night. Bombur’s food’s good, even on travel rations.”

Thorin walked along, but slowly, Dís walking quietly beside him. “What’s it all about, then?” he muttered.

  
Dwalin shook his head, eyes forward, “You’re better off not knowing. Trust me.”


	3. Chapter 3

Dwalin was good for some things. Obtaining objects from shelves. Letting himself be used as a pack mule when one was tired of carrying heavy sacks (or when one was tired of walking along oneself). Breaking mirrors with his ugly, stupid face. And, best of all, telling Frerin all about goings-on that he was otherwise deemed too young to be apprised of.

So it was when word came that _something_ happened to Thorin and Dís, no one could say quite _what_ only that they weren’t Thorin and Dís, but they _were_ \- then Dwalin explained the whole thing to him and far from settling the matter, Frerin took off like a shot because he had to see for himself.

And what a sight! True, he did rather covet that long coat his brother had been wearing - never let it be said that Frerin ever gave much in the way of thought before he spoke and admiration for Thorin’s coat had been at the forefront of Frerin’s mind - but by the Maker, the _size_ of them!

Thorin was tall, true, he topped Frerin by a good head despite his little brother’s best efforts to catch up to him, but he was nearly as broad in the shoulders as Mister Fundin. To say nothing of Dís who he’d never have recognized if he hadn’t been told who she was.

Naturally, he looked round eagerly for a third dwarf accompanying them - hopefully taller and bigger than _both_ since Frerin was the second son and it was only fair that he have _some_ way of distinguishing himself from his heir-brother and girl-sister, but they seemed to be quite alone. He was almost disappointed, but he supposed he could just ask them how tall he got later, once they’d got their bearings more.

Oh, to be sure he was a _little_ worried about his own brother and sister, but these two didn’t seem any the worse for wear and he was sure that his were faring just the same, they’d probably have better stories to tell than he would, knowing what things were like in years to come.

Maybe they could tell him how tall he’d gotten since, as the night wore on, it was looking doubtful as to whether or not he’d get a word out of big!Dís and Thorin and not for lack of trying.

“Traveling?” he asked, walking backward as they approached the camp so that he could keep staring up at them.

Dís looked at Thorin and Thorin looked someplace over Frerin’s head. He didn’t look so well, actually. He looked as if he was going to be sick. Dís seemed to realize it too, for she answered the question for him.

“Aye,” she nodded. “With nearly all our kinsmen, so...well, no doubt _we’re_ being well looked-after.”

“‘Course, ‘course,” Frerin nodded, stumbling a little over some tree root or other. He grinned up at them (Thorin always found his clumsiness amusing and the sight of anyone nearly falling sent Dís into giggles), but his brother didn’t smile now and his sister only reached out a hand to steady him with a reflexively spoken, _carefully!_

“Always,” Frerin replied, finding it only a _little_ strange to respond to his sister as if she was his mother. Thorin still wasn’t talking. He’d gone stiff as a board when Frerin tripped, but went back to looking at nothing when he saw Dís had him well in hand.

Must’ve been the shock of looking _down_ at his little brother after all these years, Frerin decided. Aye, he must’ve taken after Umad and got to be five-and-a-half feet tall. That was certainly it, he thought, but he did not feel compelled to confirm his theory anymore.

“All our kinsmen, eh?” Frerin asked, since Dís didn’t seem inclined to keep talking where he’d left off. “Heidrek and Glóin and Dwalin and them? Glóin still rear back like a skittish colt when he’s got to cross moving water?”

“Still doesn’t like getting his feet wet,” Dís confirmed.

“Can Dwalin still grab him by the belt and toss him to the other side?” Frerin asked eagerly.

Dís finally smiled, “I forgot about that - aye, I’m sure he _could_ , but he doesn’t have to. Hasn’t yet, I mean, Glóin’s made his own way along so far.”

“Well, good for him!” Frerin crowed proudly. “I knew if I pushed him in enough streams I’d buck his courage up! I’ve got to tell him the next time he tries setting Da on me - it’s for his own good, I always said.”

“Aye,” Dís said, smile vanishing as quickly as it had come. “You did.”

Frerin hadn’t any idea what he’d done wrong and he didn’t have any time to ask about it for his father came up behind him, took him by the shoulder and gave him a not-so-gentle shove toward the tents.

“Oh, come on now!” Frerin protested before his father had the chance to order him to bed. “And miss all the excitement?”

There were not two dwarves Made more dissimilar than Frerin and Thráin, at least in temperament, but they had an uncanny understanding of one another. To the point, Thráin had a sixth sense for when Frerin was causing trouble and Frerin had an almost preturnatural ability to predict what his father’s punishments were going to consist of.

“Bed,” Thráin said testily. “Now.”

Frerin predicted (correctly) that if he didn’t hurry along he’d be _made_ to hurry by a blow to his trouserseat and sulkily stomped off to his bedroll - though he pointedly left the tent flaps tied back.

If Frerin had dragged his feet a little more slowly, he would have seen that Thorin inherited his newly found posture of not looking at things he did not want to see from his father. Unable to look over his children’s heads, Thráin’s good eye settled on some distant point over Thorin’s left shoulder.

“I was told to feed you; have you eaten?”

Thorin mightn’t have been looking at his father, but Dís couldn’t take her eyes off him. The last time she had seen him, she had been a little over sixty, a reedy slip of a girl who could still be easily hoisted up and flung over her brothers’ shoulders as easily as one might haul a sack of beans.

Then, Thráin was a remote figure; tall, imposing, terrifyingly angry at times. Dís used to cover her ears so she didn’t hear him shouting, used to hide behind her brothers when he was in a bad temper, or else seek refuge with her mother when she didn’t want him to notice her.

Now, in his shirtsleeves, he seemed diminished. Not even as tall as she, he seemed less terrifying in his demeanor and more uncomfortable. With a jolt, she realized that he reminded her of Thorin.

For the past century, Dís had set up Thorin in opposition to their father. Thráin was distant from his family; Thorin provided almost a father’s love to his nephews. Thráin abandoned them; Thorin was steadfast. Thráin was cruel, always lashing out at others; Thorin reserved his sharpest criticisms for himself alone. To see them now, looking so _similar_ from the grey in their hair to their short beards made her shiver.

The two shared another characteristic - an equal propensity for surly silence. Again, Dís spoke where Thorin would not.

“We...we’re alright,” she said awkwardly. “Thanks.”

Thráin glanced up at her for the briefest of moments before her jerked his head back to the dying fires. “Don’t be difficult. There’s enough - tonight.”

Then, without another word, he swept away from both of them and whatever temporary sympathy Dís felt was gone when she heard that familiar snapping tone.

“Don’t be difficult,” she quoted under her breath. _“That’s_ something I haven’t missed - and did you lose your tongue back there?”

“What is there to say?” Thorin asked in a harsh whisper. “This is _agony.”_

Dís turned to him and he looked away, even from her now. His face was drawn down in pained lines and he was pale as the moon above.

“There are so many things I want to tell them, warnings I want to give them,” Thorin continued, so softly she had to strain to hear. “ _Don’t_ go to Moria, _don’t_ let Frerin take part in the battle, _don’t_ \- “

“But you can’t,” Dis whispered back urgently, squeezing his hand. “For then they’ll think you’re a coward.”

A hollow sound almost like laughter escaped from her brother’s drawn mouth. “Am I not?”

“Thorin - ” Dís began, closing her eyes and tamping down her frustration. She could not afford to lose her temper. Not now when Thorin was teetering on the cusp of melancholy - he was _always_ on the cusp of melancholy. It was up to her to hide her tears and grit her teeth behind a gentle smile and teasing words. One of them had to keep afloat; otherwise they would all sink. It was a lesson she’d learned well in her childhood when all of _this_ \- the family, the friends that rose around them like so many ghosts - fell away and they were the only ones left. There was no one left to take care of them; they had to take care of each other.

“Ahem.”

It was Freya. Holding two bowls of stew and wearing her usual placid expression that might have hidden a thousand furies. No one would ever know, of course. Freya did not reveal herself as easily as her husband and son; not until the end.

“Eat something,” she ordered, looking them up and down critically. “There’s hardly any spare flesh on you at all, it’s disgraceful.”

Thorin was pressed to the very limit of his patience; without a word to either of them, he walked away on long, swift legs, into the darkness at the outer reaches of the camp.

Freya watched him go with impassive eyes. “Still moody,” she shook her head. “Still so very much his father’s son.”

* * *

 

Dís turned shy when they entered the camp. She took hold of Thorin’s hand and hid behind his elbow as best she could. Luckily, Nori and Dori were hardly two dwarves who let cataclysms pass them by without commenting on them, so all were informed of their predicament and reacted with less shock than they might have otherwise done.

Thorin, of course, was wary of them all - save Dwalin. It seemed no matter what the circumstances of their life, he would always harbor an instinctive trust for his oldest and greatest friend. He looked at even Balin askance, but his eyes were clear and open whenever he happened come near Dwalin and it was to himself alone that Thorin asked his questions, whispered and nervous.

“Who are they, then?” he asked, singling out the Western dwarves with his eyes. He recognized his own kinfolk by sight, once he realized that they’d all be a century or more older than he knew them to be, but two black-bearded dwarves and their red-bearded kinsmen were total strangers.

“That’d be Bofur, Bombur and Bifur,” Dwalin said, loudly enough that they knew they were being referred to. Bofur gave Thorin a wave, Bombur gave him a smile, and Bifur a short nod. The firelight glinted off the axe in his brow and Thorin stared for a moment, fascinated, before he remembered his manners and gave a short nod of acknowledgement back. “Broadbeams.”

“And what business do Broadbeams have with us?” he whispered.

Dwalin drew in a breath, thinking. They were in-laws, of a sort - Víli’s nearest kinfolk, anyway, but he couldn’t mention Víli without giving away most of the course of the rest of their life. He didn’t need any warning looks from Balin to keep his mouth shut on that account. Too much heartache there to be digested in one evening. Better to keep things quiet until the wizard got over his snit and came back to set them all to rights again.

“They’re fond of you,” he said, smiling at Thorin’s skeptical expression. “And I’ve got to leave it at that.”

Thorin made a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat; it was the same answer he’d gotten when he asked Dwalin about Kíli and Fíli. They were by far the youngest on the quest, aside from Dori and Nori’s brother, clearly they were _someone’s_ children, but no one would say whose and they didn’t look much like anyone in the company...well. Kíli bore a faint resemblance to his own father when he was a lad, but Thorin found it difficult to believe that his mother and father would have sired another child in the wilderness.

“Should I ask where we’re going?” Thorin already knew what the answer was bound to be, but thought he might as well ask. He hated being kept in the dark.

“You have asked,” Dwalin replied. “And I said you’re better off not knowing.”

Thorin was prepared to argue the point, but something in Dwalin’s eyes made him stay his tongue. A sort of grief he wasn’t privy to. Until this point, he and Dwalin had shared _everything_ together. Every milestone, every sorrow, every joy. But _this_ Dwalin, scarred and hard, this Dwalin was not _his_. And all at once he forgot how to speak to him.

“Very well,” he said, lowering his eyes. Dís still held his hand and pressed herself tightly against his side. He knelt down and looked into her face. She wasn’t crying, but she looked worried. “Alright, namad? I’m sure it will be sorted out soon.”

He was sure of no such thing, but he was so well-practiced in letting these little white lies slip through his lips that he managed to coax a nod out of her.

“Something t’eat, maybe?” Bombur asked. He approached them, but stopped a good meter from where they stood, not wanting to spook them too badly. “Got a supper going and all, plenty to go round.”

Dís looked up at Thorin as if asking for permission. For his part, he was having a great deal of trouble not launching himself upon the bowl. It looked like meal, baked into a hearty bread, the kind of food that’d stick to a dwarf’s ribs. Over it all was ladled a thick, meaty serving of what smelled like a spicy stew - more meat than broth, just as Thorin preferred it.

“S’goat,” Bombur supplied as Thorin stared at it. “You like goat, eh?”

It had been such a long time since anyone had asked Thorin whether or not he liked what was being offered for supper that he was momentarily taken aback. He didn’t have favorites anymore, he’d take anything that was available, as much as he could which usually wasn’t very much.

“I...do,” he said after an awkward pause, taking the proffered bowl. “Thank you.”

Bombur smiled at him and crouched down to put himself on a level with Dís. “And the lassie? I could sweeten yours with honey, if you like, ‘less you prefer it as-is.”

Dís had not forgotten her favorites. She wrinkled her nose and said, “I don’t like goat.”

“Oh, you’ll like Bombur’s an’ that’s the truth of it!” Bofur exclaimed enthusiastically. “Go on, have a taste an’ see if it don’t make your innards sing a song o’sweet praise!”

Dís smiled, then replied, “But I don’t want my guts to sing. That’s unnatural.”

Dwalin snorted behind Thorin and that saved him the trouble of reprimanding his sister, and telling her not to be rude to strangers. Neither of the Broadbeams seemed offended and Bombur actually bustled away saying he thought he had something else that might tempt a lass who wasn’t fond of stewed goat meat.

Balin had peeled away from them all, evidently to lay out all the facts - which were scanty - and to inform them of what they were going to do next - make camp for the evening and then, at first light, set off for the kingdom of Rivendell.

Thorin, having gingerly sat down with his sister beside him, (only once Dwalin made a point of sitting and took to sharpening his blades, as if he wasn’t keeping a hawk-like eye on the two children), looked up sharply at the mention of Rivendell.

“We’ve come that far West?” Thorin asked Dwalin quietly. Then, before his cousin could reply added, “What makes you think an Elvenlord would lift a finger to...help, anyway?”

Dwalin’s hands never stilled, but his mouth twisted oddly, as if he was biting back words he wanted to speak. “I’ll just say the wizard has a particular reason for wanting to pay a call to Lord Elrond. And if I was a wagering dwarf - ”

“Which you are,” Thorin muttered, starting in on his supper. It really was awfully good and he was hungry enough that all the magic and wizards and elves in the world couldn’t put him off his food.

“Which I am,” Dwalin acknowledged. “I’d say that his lordship’ll get this all sorted in a trice.”

 _How can you be sure?_ Thorin wanted to ask, but stopped up his mouth with food. Dwalin wasn’t going to tell him more than he had to. That much was certain and Thorin was consumed with curiosity, but he wasn’t about to ask over and over again, like a naive young dwarfling begging for treats.

“Have a bite,” he tried coaxing Dís. “I’ll give you a bit that doesn’t have any meat in it.”

“How ‘bout an apple?” Kíli bounded over to them, holding an apple in one hand and a corked jar of honey in the other. “With honey on top?”

Dís’s eyes lit up. “Like on Durin’s Day?”

“Aye,” he smiled at her and sat down cross-legged on the ground to peel off a slice for her. “And Bombur’s got some soda farl he made made for frying up this morning, he’s still got some wrapped in cloth to keep, he could have it on the fire for you quick as winking.”

“Please!” Dís exclaimed, and Kíli nodded at Fíli who gave Bombur the word to fry up a slice of bread for the wee miss. “Are you sure you can spare the honey, though? Óin always needs some for healing, but Nori steals it to eat and then he gets in loads of trouble.”

“Don’t you mind about that, lass,” Óin said at once. “We’ve plenty of honey for healing and eating.”

Dwalin looked up from cleaning his blades and raised an eyebrow. “Like that?” he asked Thorin rhetorically. “Makes a big show about how he’s deaf as a doornail, but somehow he always manages to pick up on a conversation if it’s about him.”

Óin rolled his eyes in an expression of exasperation that Thorin recognized too well, though age had drawn all the color from his cousin’s hair and beard. “Uncle Gróin and Auntie Maeva?” he asked suddenly. “Are they - ”

“They’re - ach!” Óin turned round and found Balin frowning at him. It seemed that his cousin had decided to give him a good hard jab in the ribs to shut his mouth. “I don’t see why - ”

“I do,” Balin replied, in a placid tone that belied the consternation on his face. “So leave it.”

Óin scowled at him, but didn’t say anything further. Thorin muttered an apology and fixed his eyes on his supper. Of course they’d not tell him anything about his aunt and uncle, good news or bad. Likely they wouldn’t tell him a thing about his grandfather or his father or his…

“Dwalin,” Thorin asked, losing his appetite all at once. Dís was enjoying her apple slices and generally being fussed over by Kíli and Fíli and Bombur, so her attention was much distracted. Thorin lay aside the bowl he was given and stood up, jerking his head off to the side.

Dwalin stood as well and followed him, glancing once back at the others to see if any would mark them. Naturally, they all did, though none spoke or asked them where they were going. Thorin only moved a few paces off, keeping one eye on his sister all the while, but his thoughts were almost entirely devoted to the absence of another.

“Where’s Frerin?”


	4. You Didn't Think This Would Go Well, Did You?

Dís accepted the food when it was offered; turned out she’d developed manners sometime between the ages of thirty and...one hundred and twenty? One hundred and sixty? Her hair was uniformly dark all over, but there were lines around her eyes that spoke of much time spent with her brow furrowed and Freya honestly could not say whether the matching set around her mouth came from smiling or frowning.

Freya suspected the latter, but then, she would. The years abroad had made quite the pessimist of her.

_Why couldn’t I have had pretty children?_

The thought came sudden, unbidden, unprompted, really, except by the surreal impression of looking at her daughter and seeing the Queen of Erebor re-Made. She’d had hopes for her only that morning. Mayhap she wouldn’t inherit Thrór’s pinched, pointed nose, could be she’d settle into a hearty plumpness and stop growing at a sensible four-and-a-half feet, rather than climbing all the way up at an absurd five. But alas, it seemed that was one more dream dashed; broad shoulders, big hands, huge feet and not a bit of spare flesh on her. If she didn’t remember birthing them, some days Freya would swear that her children were Thráin’s alone.

“Still wearing your brother’s clothes, I see,” Freya said, unable to think of any other way to begin a conversation with this daughter who might as well be a stranger.

This daughter who said nothing, merely went back to her stew and bread with renewed vigor, apparently eager to have done with her food as quickly as possible. It took everything in Freya’s considerable well of dignity not to openly bristle at the slight.

And so, Freya fell back on her oldest, best habit to make the uncommunicative talk: goading. Her tongue sharpened, her eyes narrowed and she pointedly remarked. “Can’t afford garments of your own? It must be dire straits you’re living in and so many years gone by; it’s a shame you haven’t been able to do better for yourself.”

To her credit, Dís did not take the bait. She did not even so much as glance up from the single-minded attention she was paying to her stew.

“You’re just like your father,” Freya lamented, rising and missing the way her daughter’s head snapped up at the unintended criticism. “Always preferring silence to bad news.”

Dís seemed about to retaliate and drew herself up, ready to retort with some defense, but she noticed that, as she stiffened, her mother relaxed. The worry line between her eyebrows smoothed and the edges of her mouth twitched upward ever so slightly. It was an expression she had so rarely seen upon her mother’s face in her last years that she had forgotten it. Satisfaction. Well, she would not see it through.

“If you say so,” she forced her voice to be even, forced her shoulders to hitch in a shrug, too jerky to be careless, but it gave nothing away.

There were different ways to fight. Some had it out with fists, others with swords. Freya preferred words and she’d found herself a sparring partner.

“Well, you’ll talk about your father,” she observed, sitting back down and fixing Dís with an icy blue stare which her daughter met, impassively. “Family’ll get you talking even if finance won’t. So, you haven’t had a windfall. Fair enough, neither have we. Have you given me any grandchildren?”

Dís hesitated, wary, but her mother knew enough. Her shorn beard practically screamed widowhood, it was a natural thing to inquire whether or not any children had come of the union.

“I have children,” she replied, carefully, choking the last of her bread down with difficulty.

“Children?” Freya repeated, unable to keep pleasure from coloring her tone. “Muhudel Mahal. How many?”

“Two.”

“Two boys?” she guessed. “Or a boy and a girl? Or - now, I doubt we’ve ever been blessed enough in His eyes for this - two _girls?”_

“Two boys,” Dís replied curtly.

“Thought as much,” Freya nodded and Dís frowned at her, wary of...well, she could not say. Insult, perhaps, though what did it matter? She was talking to a ghost, just as much as her mother was chatting with a vision. “And their names - this is just like pulling teeth, I’ll have you know. What are they called, if you’ll humor me?”

Dís did not much care for her mother’s hardship. She honored her memory well enough, her life was wrapped around Dís’s left arm, braided thick and black right above her husband’s. She lit fires for them on the Day of Remembrance, smeared her face with ash and told her sons to keep their names on their tongues and in their minds during their prayers. To see her now, look into those cool, remote eyes again hardened her heart and made her want to lash out, to strike the poise and composure from her beautiful face.

Beautiful. Freya was nothing if not beautiful. Even here in patched clothes. Even wasting away under a faded quilt in the Ered Luin. “Fíli and Kíli,” she said shortly. “Elder and younger, respectively.”

She saw her mother try the names out on her tongue and noted the exact moment when Freya confirmed that she knew not any family who used similar outer names. She was grateful her mother had not asked for their Names; if she had, Dís would not have given them to her.

“Who was their father?” Freya asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously. She thought - oh, never mind what she thought, she was _dead_ and this was _nothing_ and she _did not deserve to know._

“He’s dead, you don’t know him,” Dís gritted out, squaring her shoulders and looking away at the last second, staring into the darkness. Freya hadn’t known him, not really. If she had truly known Víli, his goodness, she could not have spoken so cruelly about him, even to the last.

Yet she was shrewd. Shrewd and stubborn and though she had not known her daughter’s husband after meeting him, she knew what Dís was pointedly not saying.

“You wed a pauper, then?” Freya asked, her mouth thinning at the thought that her daughter, who might have had a _king_ , chose a commoner. Sighing, she tried for a lighter tone. “I supposed you loved him - of course you must have. That counts for something.”

She was not prepared for Dís’s mirthless laugh, nor the way she hauled herself to her feet, skittish as a new-broken pony. “Does it? Why?” Throwing her mother a disgusted look, she said, “You never loved yours.”

Freya opened her mouth, but no sound emerged. Those narrowed, calculating eyes, opened wide and vulnerable. She was speechless; Dís had disarmed her. But she would not land the killing blow, instead, she walked away toward the line of trees, anger radiating off of her, warning others away. Freya stayed behind, mouth agape, reeling from the shock of the accusation.

Perhaps it was cold. Perhaps it was undeserved - after all, Freya had done well by them while they wandered. Punishing someone for a crime not yet committed was unjust, but Dís was beyond caring. Damn her mother for her wickedness. Damn her brother for leaving her alone. And damn her for being unable to hold her tongue. She only hoped her fellows were faring better in their proper place and time.

* * *

 

_Fuck._

Try as he might, that was the only word that came to mind.

_Fuck._

And there it was again, though Dwalin doubled his efforts to come up with something a bit more substantial. Too late, though. Thorin had to have read the truth in his silence; he was never at a loss for words around him.

“Oh…” Thorin scarcely breathed the word, his breath hitching in his chest, throat growing tight and eyes hot. “But...but… _how?_ ”

“I haven’t said anything,” Dwalin managed at last.

“You didn’t have to!” These words came out as a half-screamed accusation, but Thorin stuffed his knuckles in his mouth to silence himself, unconsciously gnawing on the skin. He looked up at Dwalin, pale as the moon above. “Was it my fault?”  
“ _Listen,_ ” Dwalin held Thorin by the shoulders - not a moment too soon, he was quaking and shuddering so that he seemed on the verge of collapse. “I haven’t said anything. Frerin’s not here, but that’s...that’s not - ”

“But if he was - if he was alright, you’d tell me,” Thorin countered hotly. “Nevermind Balin, nevermind...nevermind it _all_ , if there was anything to say about him, you’d say it, but there isn’t, is there? _Is there?_ ”

There wasn’t.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Dwalin said, because that was all he _could_ say. Hadn’t said, until now, though he should have. Should have said it every day since Moria. Maybe by now Thorin would believe him. Maybe this one would. “I swear on my...on our ancestors. It wasn’t your fault.”

Tears were slipping from Thorin’s eyes, freer than Dwalin had ever seen them come. Thorin liked to keep his weeping private and, ordinarily, Dwalin let him have his peace, when he wanted it. Could be the shock of it, could’ve been the look of him, skinny as a rail and younger than Fíli, but Dwalin didn’t leave him to himself. Just wrapped him close and held him tight while the lad sobbed over a heartache that was twenty-five years too soon in coming.

“What was it?” Thorin asked when he could speak again. “A raid? Just...cold? Hunger? Did we run out of water? No, it must’ve been a raid, I’d have starved before I let either of them - ”

“No, it wasn’t - Thorin, it wasn’t anything you could’ve done - ”

“But if you’re so sure that this was the wizard’s doing, if it all had a purpose...can’t wizards see the future? The past? Don’t they _know_ \- ”

“Thorin, this wizard - ” Dwalin had to stop himself before he said something he might regret; wouldn’t do to get on Gandalf’s bad side and find himself a hundred years in the past with another confused lad in their midst. “If he’s got a plan, it’s his own and nothing to do with us. Far as I can see it, he’s helping us just as far as it suits his purposes. It suits his purposes to go to Rivendell where Lord Elrond can work some magic to get you back where you belong. That’s all.”

Thorin was quiet. He pulled away, just out of Dwalin’s reach. And when he spoke next, he spoke to the space between them. “If you told me how it happened, I could stop it.”

It was odd, Dwalin reflected more than once, how a dwarf with such a low opinion of himself, could believe he had the power to mould the world. _Nice work on that blade, Thorin,_ you’d say and he’d say, _Nah, wasn’t much, just hope the balance isn’t off._ But if you said, _Too bad about the blight that got the corn crop,_ he’d immediately jump in, _I ought to have gotten more grain for a better price, I’ll just mix ashes from the fire in to stretch the flour, I’m sorry, it’s my doing, if only I’d made it rain more._

Thorin couldn’t stop the thrust of a blade. Couldn’t stop the coming of a war. Couldn’t stop a thick-skulled seventy-year-old idiot from charging into a fight when he was determined to do so.

“No,” Dwalin said firmly. “You couldn’t.”

His brows drew together, dark as thunderclouds. His shoulders heaved, ready for a fight. Dwalin stood by, waiting, for a blow or a scream, or even silence, but they were interrupted before Thorin could plan his attack.

“I told that brother of yours you couldn’t be trusted,” Glóin announced so loudly that they must’ve heard him back at the camp. “I wager you’re telling him all about the West, down to the street with the best pubs and worst fights, eh? _Eh?_ ”

Glóin had very little patience for anyone who wasn’t his wife or Gimli. He glared at his cousins and jerked his head back to the camp.

“Come along,” he ordered them. “Where we can keep an eye on you. Dís gobbled up all the apples, we’ve nothing to tempt the mounts with - ”

“If I’ve told you once, you’ve heard it a thousand times over,” Dwalin snapped. “Apples aren’t good for ‘em to be fed with regular. Too sweet, s’bad on their stomachs. Isn’t that so, Thorin?”

He half reached for him, but Thorin jerked away, head down, lips closed. Wouldn’t even look at Dwalin, but he followed obediently behind Glóin who was already grumbling about Dwalin wanting to play at being horsemaster, but _he_ was the one who brushed them down when they made camp.

Dwalin let Glóin have his snit. Better that one of them get talking than they all stew in silence. Thorin didn’t look at him again, and only spoke once more when he pulled Dís to her feet and said, “Come. To bed. The sooner we get to the Elves, the sooner this’ll be over with.”

“Oh!” she stomped her foot and looked cross. “But I was having fun! Fíli and Kíli and Ori were telling me - ”

“Bed,” Thorin repeated, his voice and eyes hard. “Now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Durin Family: It's Awful Because They Care.


	5. Chapter 5

_Fuck._

Try as he might, that was the only word that came to mind.

_Fuck._

And there it was again, though Dwalin doubled his efforts to come up with something a bit more substantial. Too late, though. Thorin had to have read the truth in his silence; he was never at a loss for words around him.

“Oh…” Thorin scarcely breathed the word, his breath hitching in his chest, throat growing tight and eyes hot. “But...but… _how?_ ”

“I haven’t said anything,” Dwalin managed at last.

“You didn’t have to!” These words came out as a half-screamed accusation, but Thorin stuffed his knuckles in his mouth to silence himself, unconsciously gnawing on the skin. He looked up at Dwalin, pale as the moon above. “Was it my fault?”

“ _Listen,_ ” Dwalin held Thorin by the shoulders - not a moment too soon, he was quaking and shuddering so that he seemed on the verge of collapse. “I haven’t said anything. Frerin’s not here, but that’s...that’s not - ”

“But if he was - if he was alright, you’d tell me,” Thorin countered hotly. “Nevermind Balin, nevermind...nevermind it _all_ , if there was anything to say about him, you’d say it, but there isn’t, is there? _Is there?_ ”

There wasn’t.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Dwalin said, because that was all he _could_ say. Hadn’t said, until now, though he should have. Should have said it every day since Moria. Maybe by now Thorin would believe him. Maybe this one would. “I swear on my...on our ancestors. It wasn’t your fault.”

Tears were slipping from Thorin’s eyes, freer than Dwalin had ever seen them come. Thorin liked to keep his weeping private and, ordinarily, Dwalin let him have his peace, when he wanted it. Could be the shock of it, could’ve been the look of him, skinny as a rail and younger than Fíli, but Dwalin didn’t leave him to himself. Just wrapped him close and held him tight while the lad sobbed over a heartache that was twenty-five years too soon in coming.

“What was it?” Thorin asked when he could speak again. “A raid? Just...cold? Hunger? Did we run out of water? No, it must’ve been a raid, I’d have starved before I let either of them - ”

“No, it wasn’t - Thorin, it wasn’t anything you could’ve done - ”

“But if you’re so sure that this was the wizard’s doing, if it all had a purpose...can’t wizards see the future? The past? Don’t they _know_ \- ”

“Thorin, this wizard - ” Dwalin had to stop himself before he said something he might regret; wouldn’t do to get on Gandalf’s bad side and find himself a hundred years in the past with another confused lad in their midst. “If he’s got a plan, it’s his own and nothing to do with us. Far as I can see it, he’s helping us just as far as it suits his purposes. It suits his purposes to go to Rivendell where Lord Elrond can work some magic to get you back where you belong. That’s all.”

Thorin was quiet. He pulled away, just out of Dwalin’s reach. And when he spoke next, he spoke to the space between them. “If you told me how it happened, I could stop it.”

It was odd, Dwalin reflected more than once, how a dwarf with such a low opinion of himself, could believe he had the power to mould the world. _Nice work on that blade, Thorin,_ you’d say and he’d say, _Nah, wasn’t much, just hope the balance isn’t off._ But if you said, _Too bad about the blight that got the corn crop,_ he’d immediately jump in, _I ought to have gotten more grain for a better price, I’ll just mix ashes from the fire in to stretch the flour, I’m sorry, it’s my doing, if only I’d made it rain more._

Thorin couldn’t stop the thrust of a blade. Couldn’t stop the coming of a war. Couldn’t stop a thick-skulled seventy-year-old idiot from charging into a fight when he was determined to do so.

“No,” Dwalin said firmly. “You couldn’t.”

His brows drew together, dark as thunderclouds. His shoulders heaved, ready for a fight. Dwalin stood by, waiting, for a blow or a scream, or even silence, but they were interrupted before Thorin could plan his attack.

“I told that brother of yours you couldn’t be trusted,” Glóin announced so loudly that they must’ve heard him back at the camp. “I wager you’re telling him all about the West, down to the street with the best pubs and worst fights, eh? _Eh?_ ”

Glóin had very little patience for anyone who wasn’t his wife or Gimli. He glared at his cousins and jerked his head back to the camp.

“Come along,” he ordered them. “Where we can keep an eye on you. Dís gobbled up all the apples, we’ve nothing to tempt the mounts with - ”

“If I’ve told you once, you’ve heard it a thousand times over,” Dwalin snapped. “Apples aren’t good for ‘em to be fed with regular. Too sweet, s’bad on their stomachs. Isn’t that so, Thorin?”

He half reached for him, but Thorin jerked away, head down, lips closed. Wouldn’t even look at Dwalin, but he followed obediently behind Glóin who was already grumbling about Dwalin wanting to play at being horsemaster, but _he_ was the one who brushed them down when they made camp.

Dwalin let Glóin have his snit. Better that one of them get talking than they all stew in silence. Thorin didn’t look at him again, and only spoke once more when he pulled Dís to her feet and said, “Come. To bed. The sooner we get to the Elves, the sooner this’ll be over with.”

“Oh!” she stomped her foot and looked cross. “But I was having fun! Fíli and Kíli and Ori were telling me - ”

“Bed,” Thorin repeated, his voice and eyes hard. “Now.”

 

* * *

 

Thorin was better than Dís at going undiscovered when he wished to be, but it could not last forever. After all, he had learned from a far superior master.

If pressed, Thráin could not say why he’d come. Why he’d gone looking at all. It was magic beyond his ken to understand it. The only thing he’d ever claimed any mastery of in his life was figures, damn him. His poor father was taking it all in stride, his _wife_ was attempting to conduct herself as if nothing was wrong and his son would, of course, find the whole thing curious-making and no more.

If he did not do something, he would only fret himself to distraction, he reasoned as he took himself out of his tent and into the night air, in search of...something, though what he could not say. Better to work than to remain idle. Anything was better than idleness.

The fireside where he’d left his wife and the dam his daughter was evidently destined to become (which seemed _impossible_ , she was such a skinny, bitty thing now) was abandoned and he roughly kicked some dirt over the few lingering flames.

“A fire’d be just the thing,” he muttered darkly. “Burn the forest ‘round our ears. Couldn’t ask for a better end to the night.”

But then, perhaps it was all a dream. Perhaps a cataclysm was just the thing to snap him out of it. Thráin looked down at the fire and up at the circling trees.

No. Best not to risk it.

Pacing circles round the camp was not an uncommon occupation for Thráin to take up, endlessly circling, though he couldn’t be said to be guarding. His eye were not sharp and darting, but fixed and blank, staring ahead seemingly into space. It was in such a state that he walked now and likely would not have found his subconscious prey had it not started suddenly and with a muffled curse when he realized he was being set upon.

Thráin blinked once, then stared. Thorin drew himself back, crossing his arms over his chest, but likewise didn’t say anything. Knowing his son - his _adolescent_ son - Thráin was fairly sure that he could just turn on his heel and walk away without a word said between them. They hardly talked, now. Not that they’d been great conversationalists in the whole of their lives. Thráin supposed it was his fault, but could not think of a way to correct it. Least of all now. Least of all with this tall, drawn looking dwarf who looked like a pale shade of his own father.

“What?” Thorin asked roughly, uncharacteristically breaking the silence. “Has something happened?”

“No,” Thráin replied shortly. Then, suspiciously, “Do you expect something?”

Thorin laughed, shortly, harshly. It wasn’t a sound he’d ever heard his son make before, but sounded familiar to Thráin’s ears anyway, though he didn’t have the presence of mind to realize that the abrasive, humorless laugh often came from his own throat.

“I don’t _expect_ anything,” Thorin replied. “Save some new disaster.”

He seemed about to leave on that note, he turned away, in the opposite direction that Thráin had been walking in, but stopped when Thráin raised his voice to ask, “You’re still travelling?”

Thorin turned round slowly, lowering his arms and clenched his hands into fists. He did not immediately respond.

“You’re dressed for it,” Thráin explained, which was different. He never explained himself to his son. Never saw a need for it.

“We’ve been traveling,” Thorin said, seeming to measure every word as he spoke them.

“We never settled?” Thráin asked. He was trying to put his mathematical mind to good use. There was a chance - a _chance_ that his father had lived into his third century (he would have had to have lived well into his third century, since Thorin looked to be approaching his second, if he hadn’t already). “Not even in the Iron Hills?”

It didn’t make sense. It was too long a time to spend on the roads. Without giving his uncle too much credit, Thráin thought if they had been homeless a century, enough of their number would have been depleted that Grór would not have felt too overburdened to allow them to permanently reside in his kingdom. Náin would have insisted, if nothing else, for he was not hard-hearted.

“We settled,” Thorin said. And that was it.

Thráin was not a dwarf who generally made much of his emotions in public. If he could not be satisfied, he could be guarded. It was his goal, when out of doors, to remain as unyielding and unfathomable as unhewn granite.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t the temperament to remain inscrutable for long.

“So why are you going abroad _now_?” Thráin asked, quickly losing his patience. “And with a wizard?”

Thorin did not say anything. And then, all at once, he said, “I didn’t think the matter would be of much interest to you. What became of us at last.”

“What?” Thráin asked, voice rising uncomfortably loudly, considering how close they stood to one another. “What are you talking about?”

Thorin closed his eyes and steeled himself, as if facing down a blow. “Nothing. Nothing.”

“Clearly you meant something if you _said_ it,” Thráin spat. “Is that all the respect you accord your father, then?”

“Respect?” Thorin asked, his own voice rising to meet Thráin’s. “Respect? Is that what you’re asking for? Is that what you think you deserve after - no. No, it’s over and done and I won’t speak of it.”

“Won’t you?” Thráin asked, seizing hold of Thorin’s arm as he made to stomp away. “Because you’re flapping your jaws quite a bit for someone who wants to keep silent - ”

Thorin shook him off so hard that Thráin nearly staggered. “I’d be speaking ‘til the past caught up with us if I gave voice to everything I’ve wanted to say to _you_ ,” Thorin snarled. “Just leave me be. Don’t speak to me. Don’t come near me.”

He was shaking. Trembling. Likely from rage and Thráin took a step back; he’d never been one for confrontation when he was not sure he would come out the victor.

“I exhausted the measure of your regard?” Thráin asked, not expecting an answer. Perhaps, after all, it was a dream. Certainly seemed a nightmare, or the realization of a fear, at least. He always wondered when it was that his children’s affection for him would run out. He assumed it would, one day. He was not a dwarf to whom other dwarves bestowed much care and never had been.

“Exhausted,” Thorin was not so loud now, but he did not seem any more inclined that Thráin should come near him. “Aye, long ago. It’s only fair, I suppose. Given all the _affection_ you had for your family wouldn’t fill a thimble.”

“What?”

The word left Thráin’s mouth before he could stop himself, before he could consider a measured response. But try as he might to rally himself, to make demands - to _act_ even, and strike that scornful expression off his son’s face - he could think of nothing to say, nothing to do, in the face of such an accusation.

_All the affection you had for your family wouldn’t fill a thimble._

What?

Thráin was not warm. Was not demonstrative. He was a bad-tempered, hard-hearted dwarf, who often derived his only pleasure in vocally finding fault with everyone and everything around him. He would never claim he was a pleasant sort of person or even go so far as to imagine himself a _good_ sort of person. But he loved his family. Of course he did. If not, if he did not need to lend the keeness of his mind and the strength of his hands to their preservation, he would have long ago passed out of the world, he was sure of it. Even if they came to think nothing of him, he would always care for them. Always. And yet…

_All the affection you had for your family wouldn’t fill a thimble._

“What?”

He was repeating himself, he _hated_ repeating himself, but he wanted an answer, an explanation, something. He ought to be furious. He ought to rage and fight and scream. But as ever when Thráin found himself in over his head, he did none of those things. He froze.

Thorin seemed as if he would speak. He opened his mouth and something in his expression seemed to soften, to see his father so bowed down. Or perhaps it was only a shadow passing over his face for an instant later his mouth was closed, his fists were clenched, and he shook his head, disappearing deeper into the darkness.

It would have been simplicity itself to follow him. If that was his _own_ Thorin, his adolescent son, Thráin would have felt no qualms about chasing him down, shouting about disrespect to the heavens until Thorin finally caved in and managed to grit out an insincere apology. It was a victory of a sort. But this grown dwarf, it seemed, would not break so easily as once he head. Thráin did not have it in him to wonder why that was.

Instead, he trudged back to camp. There he was greeted by another unfamiliar sight: his wife, running towards him.

After her jewels had fallen away, sold on the roadside for far less than their value, Freya cloaked herself in dignity. Rarely did she _run_ anywhere. Rarer still did she actively seek out her husband’s company.

Yet there she was and, when she got close, a miracle - she wrapped her arms about Thráin and held him close. He was so busy marveling over the occurrance, remembering how to embrace her, that he almost missed the fact that she was crying. An easy thing; Freya had not shed a single tear that he had seen since the Mountain fell.

“According to our daughter,” she managed to get out, “I never loved you.”

Whatever reaction she expected from Thráin, a hopeless chuckle was not it. “That’s funny,” he said, shaking his head. “According to our son, I never loved any of you.”


End file.
